Now or Never
by sugah66
Summary: When is a secret not a secret? When everyone already knows. Danny and Lindsay come clean. 7th in the Elvis series, after Suspicious CSIs. DL. Oneshot.


**TITLE: Now or Never  
****AUTHOR: Sugah Sugah  
****SUMMARY: Danny and Lindsay come clean with the rest of the lab. Or so they think.  
****SPOILERS: None that I can think of.  
****PAIRING: M&Ms all the way.  
****RATING: K+ - They're still at work.  
****DISCLAIMER: Last time I checked, I wasn't Jerry Bruckheimer. Let me check again. Nope. Still not him.  
****AUTHOR'S NOTE: Seventh fic in the Elvis series, after "Suspicious CSIs". This was what that one was supposed to be about, but I liked doing that one too much to ruin it with this part, so I decided to add another fic. I'm sure you're all disappointed. It also answers the question of who won the office pool.**

**The diesel engine thing is courtesy of Jeff Foxworthy. I am a redneck, and I admit it with pride.**

**Thanks to Boleyn for beta-ing this for me.**

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**Now or Never**

Lindsay couldn't help but notice the curious glances she was getting from her coworkers, or the barely whispered whispers that followed her down the hall as she went from Trace to her and Danny's shared office. Once or twice, she stopped to look around, but every time she did, they all went about their business as if they hadn't been saying anything. It was really starting to grate on her last nerve. She sped up her pace, practically sprinting into her office.

Danny glanced up as she all but slammed the door behind her, his brow furrowed in both confusion and concern. "Are you all right?" he asked, his voice adopting that tone that could turn dangerous if she didn't calm him down.

"We work with juveniles," she said, collapsing into her chair. It was the understatement of the century. Ever since she and Danny had returned from Las Vegas, whispers and stares met them everywhere they went in the lab. It had only been a week, but she didn't know how much more she could take before she snapped. "I think they know something."

Danny smiled and shook his head, his eyes drifting back towards his computer screen, which was spitting out results from the serial number he was running. "They suspect, is all," he said. "They don't know anything. They just think they do."

Lindsay sighed. Either he truly didn't care what people thought about the two of them together, or he was in complete denial about the whole situation. Either way, she was growing frustrated. She was tired of the two of them having to wear their wedding rings on chains around their necks. She was tired of not being able to touch him or steal kisses in the locker room. She was tired of one of them having to wait to leave so it wouldn't raise suspicion. She was tired of sneaking around. Sneaking around took energy that she simply didn't have. Any energy that she had when she got home from work was used up by the bespectacled smartass sitting opposite her. How had she ever questioned his stamina? That man was like a diesel engine. He could run for a long, long time.

She squirmed in her seat, suddenly uncomfortable. If Danny noticed, he let the moment pass.

"We need to tell them about us," Lindsay said, for what felt like the millionth time. She had wanted to talk about this ever since she woke up in Las Vegas with Danny's ring on her finger. But he kept avoiding the issue.

"What happened to the doing it on Mac's desk and letting everyone catch us plan I came up with the other day?" he asked, his eyes still riveted on his computer screen. But she could see the teasing glint in his eye and the barest hint of a smirk quirking the corners of his lips.

"I'm serious, Danny." She didn't give him the satisfaction of smiling. It would only encourage him.

"So am I." He licked his lips, and she shivered in spite of herself. He had no idea how sexy he was when he did that. Or maybe he did, and he did that to torture her. He was really quite good at torturing her.

She shifted again. Danny looked up and raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

"We are not doing anything on our boss's desk," she said.

"Why not? It would kill two birds with one stone. One," he said, holding up one finger, his results now forgotten, "it would let everyone know in no uncertain terms that you and I are together. And two, I would get to fulfill one of my greatest fantasies."

Lindsay rolled her eyes and rested her chin on her hand, trying not to notice how incredible Danny looked in that tight-fitting polo shirt. It hugged his muscles every time he moved and left very little to the imagination. Of course, she didn't have to imagine what lay beneath that fabric. She shivered again and shifted once more, trying to relieve the pressure that was beginning to settle below her belt. Danny watched her, his irises darkening to that smoky cobalt color that signaled trouble.

She tried to keep the conversation light. "You fantasize about having sex on Mac's desk?"

He leveled that iron gaze at her and licked his lips again. He had to know what he was doing to her. "You don't?"

She had. She just didn't want to admit it. She didn't want him to know just how tempted she was to agree to his plan. "Now is not the time to be discussing it," was what she said. "I don't want to start talking about things we can't finish."

He waggled his eyebrows. "Who says we can't?"

"Danny," Lindsay said, trying to sound rebuking and probably failing miserably.

He sighed. "All right, Montana," he said. She smiled. She loved it when he called her that, so long as he called her Lindsay at the proper moments. "We'll tell them your way."

"Excellent." She rose from her seat and was at the door when she realized that he was still seated, staring at his computer again. She cocked an eyebrow at him and shot him a pointed look.

"What?" he said. "Now?"

"It's now or never, Danny."

He lifted one shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug. "I vote never."

"Danny."

"All right, fine."

They wound their way through the corridors of the lab. Lindsay walked slightly in front of Danny so as not to be tempted to reach out and take his hand. She suspected he was walking behind her for completely different reasons. They split up to search for their coworkers, whom Lindsay eventually found in the break room in the midst of a fairly heated argument. Hawkes, Flack, and Mac were grouped around Stella, who was scribbling something in a day planner.

"For the last time, Mac," Stella said, "you can only pick one. Picking more than one is cheating."

"It's not cheating," Mac said, attempting to take Stella's pencil from her. "It's hedging my bets."

Stella and Mac fought over the pencil, which surprised Lindsay. "If you were so confident in your pick, you wouldn't need to hedge your bets."

"She's got you there, Mac," said Flack. He started laughing and then looked up, meeting Lindsay's gaze. "Hey there, Lindsay."

The others looked up. Mac released his grip on Stella's pencil, and Stella scrambled to close the day planner in which she'd been writing. Lindsay pursed her lips. She knew they knew something had happened, and she knew that whatever they had just been discussing had something to do with that, but she had no idea what it could be.

"Where's Danny?" Flack asked.

Lindsay immediately got defensive, even though Flack's question wasn't far off base. "What makes you think that I can't go somewhere without Danny?"

Before Flack had the opportunity to answer her question, Danny appeared at her elbow. He didn't seem to notice that everyone was staring at them. "Hey, Linds, I couldn't find…" He trailed off as he became aware that Lindsay was not alone. "Oh. There's everyone."

Stella was grinning. "Yes, Danny. Here's everyone."

Lindsay looked expectantly at Danny. Now that they were here, faced with having to actually come out and tell their coworkers that not only were they sleeping together, they had gotten married, Lindsay was suddenly very much in favor of Danny's plan. Danny returned her stare, cocking an eyebrow as if to say, "Well?" She turned back to the others and took a deep breath.

"Danny and I have something to tell you guys," she said. Movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned to see that Danny was pointing at her and shaking his head. She smacked him.

"What is it, Lindsay?" Stella asked, sounding more eager than anxious, which only confirmed Lindsay's suspicions that they knew something.

Lindsay took another deep breath. "Danny and I are…" She stopped and took another deep breath. She noticed absently that Flack was bracing his hands on the table, leaning forward. "Danny and I are…" Stella had scooted closer, her hands clasped in front of her. "We're…"

Danny groaned, grabbed Lindsay's hand, pulled her towards him, and kissed her. Really kissed her. Like he kissed her when they got back to his apartment. Like he kissed her before they made their way to the bedroom, assuming they made it to the bedroom. This wasn't a chaste little appropriate-for-work kiss. This was a swallow-each-other's-tongues kiss. He released her just as abruptly, then ran his thumb across his bottom lip, as if savoring her taste.

When Lindsay could only gape at him, he grinned and said, "There you go. We told 'em." And he leaned against the doorframe, looking so unbelievably sexy, and she just wanted to clock him.

An excited whoop tore her eyes from Danny. Flack was dancing around the break room and laughing in everyone's face. "I won! I won!" He was singing it rather than shouting it, adding yet another reason to Lindsay's mental list of why Flack should not quit his day job.

"Won what?" Lindsay asked, as Stella grudgingly held out a wad of cash, which Flack gleefully ripped from her hand. Lindsay gasped as she realized what they'd been discussing earlier. "You guys bet on whether or not we'd get together?"

"No," Stella said, sounding scandalized. "There was no question you guys would get together. We were betting on when."

Flack giggled – actually giggled – and started counting his money. "Yeah, and today was my day in the pool."

Danny and Lindsay exchanged a glance. Danny was smiling, and Lindsay couldn't resist smirking at Flack. "Hate to break it to you, Flack, but if you were betting on today, you lost."

Stella let out a great barking laugh and grabbed the cash out of Flack's hand. Flack narrowed his eyes. "So then who won?"

Adam suddenly appeared in the doorway, waving a sheet of paper. "Hey, Mac, I've got those DNA results for you." He looked around, his brow furrowed. "Did I not get an invitation to the party?"

Lindsay leaned forward so that she could look at Stella's day planner, and now she saw what Stella had been writing – nearly every day of that month had little initials penciled by the date. Mac had apparently been attempting to pick more than one day. She trailed her finger along the previous week until she found the date of her and Danny's impromptu wedding. She lightly tapped the day with one finger.

She didn't notice that her wedding ring had fallen out until she heard the gasps.

"Oh, my God," Stella said. She stood up so quickly that she knocked her chair over.

Flack crossed the room in three strides and yanked at the chain around Danny's neck, pulling his ring out of his shirt. "I knew it!"

"You got married?" Stella asked, though she sounded more awed than shocked. "Like, really married?"

Lindsay nodded. Her tongue felt thick in her throat. She closed her eyes, mentally preparing herself for the onslaught of comments that were sure to follow this certainly unexpected revelation. But no one said anything, and when Lindsay dared to open her eyes, she saw that Stella, Flack, and Mac were looking in yet another day planner.

"No way," Flack said, raising his eyes from the planner to look behind Lindsay.

Adam reached across the table and plucked the wad of bills from Stella's hand. He started to count them, whistling nonchalantly, completely ignoring the shocked looks he was getting from his coworkers. He turned away without saying a word and disappeared out the door, still whistling.

Lindsay looked at Danny. He shook his head. "Next time, Montana, we go with my plan."


End file.
